LISA BUCKINGHAM: Start digging Chancellor, time is running out

George Osborne apparently harbours ambitions to become leader of his party. Unless he does something to kick-start our becalmed economy he will be lucky still to be Chancellor by the end of the year.

Though Osborne and the Bank of England Governor last week officially launched their programme to encourage the banks to lend (yet again), other incentives to catapult infrastructure projects off the drawing board have so far come to nought.

Business is becoming restive, fearing that the economy will continue to stagnate. Last week, CBI director-general John Cridland said there was now an urgent need to see ‘diggers on the ground’ as he bemoaned how disappointed he was that the Government was taking so long to get ‘urgency and momentum into the growth plan’.

Lisa Buckingham: George Osborne must use our AAA credit rating while he can to underwrite badly needed infrastructure plans

Several senior business leaders
joined to press the Government to make an early decision on additional
airport capacity for the South-East, without which they fear our export
effort and long-term business links with booming Asia will grind to a
halt.

Yet when
Transport Secretary Justine Greening unveiled the Government’s latest
thoughts, they were for a new railway connecting the South-West with
Heathrow, but no airport decision. The new line will, she said, allow
maximum usage of Heathrow – this just a day or so after the airport
revealed that it handled 1.6 per cent more passengers, taking its total
to a record 6.2 million in June. The airport is clearly bursting at
the seams already.

The
need for action is now urgent – the UK’s AAA credit rating may not last
for ever and that will undermine Osborne’s ability to use his strong
balance sheet to underwrite badly needed infrastructure projects.

As
Parliament heads towards its long summer break, Osborne must bear in
mind it will annoy workers and businesses to see photos of him sunning
himself abroad while the economy at home remains frozen.

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As
a woman of a certain age, I like to look ‘on trend’ without breaking
my budget nor breaching the rules of decorum. So M&S should be my
place.

Every day I
walk through one of its flagship stores. Last week after days of
contemplating the purchase of a pair of trousers, I finally decided to
buy.

They had been
there at lunchtime. By going home time, however, they were gone. I then
asked four – yes four – staff members about them before finding someone
to tell me where I could find them.

Alas,
they had been removed because they were not one of the top ten
best-selling items. So had I missed my chance? Would they ever come
back? Possibly tomorrow, said the assistant without the vaguest thought
she might achieve a sale if she popped into the stock room to get them
for me or suggest I reserve a pair. Sales are hard enough to come by
without staff putting obstacles in the way of taking a few quid at the
tills.

If my sales
were down nearly seven per cent in the opening quarter I’d have my staff
hawking wares on the pavement rather than refusing to walk a few yards
to get something out of the stockroom.

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When
the world’s biggest security company makes a gargantuan hash of the
world’s most high-profile contract, questions have to be asked at the
very highest levels in the boardroom.

Nick
Buckles, chief executive of G4S, the group ‘responsible’ for guarding
the Olympics, has already tested shareholders’ patience with a huge and
expensively aborted takeover bid.

The group now estimates it will lose up to £50million on its contract to protect the London Games.

It
beggars belief that it could not recruit sufficient able people on time
– unless it had underbid and tried to carry out its responsibilities on
the cheap.

The financial cost to this company is huge. The reputational damage immeasurable.

John Connolly, barely a month into his role as G4S chairman, should make it his first job to fire Buckles.